Disclaimer: See Prologue.

Spoilers, etc.

Human Nature
By: TF
Beta: Asteroid Blues

Chapter 06: A Case of Predator and Prey

"The influx of our target's people is making the villagers nervous."

Naruto cracked a blue eye open to regard his partner from his sprawled out position on a futon.

"There are also rumors circulating concerning rising crime and kidnapping rates in the surrounding villages. Our target doesn't seem to be containing his men well."

Gaara was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, his face stoic. The sheets rustled as Naruto sat up, sleep gone from his eyes as his mind turned through recent events.

"The activity level at the warehouse district is unusual as well," Naruto commented, his eyes flickering towards his partner as he spoke. "If we don't move soon we'll have to follow the target when he moves. It's been two months since we started reconnaissance and we haven't found anything new in the last week other than more thugs swarming into the area."

"We'll wait a few days," Gaara said, his green eyes looking over the village through their small window. "We'll give them time to become complacent, then we'll go in."

"We don't really need any more information anyway. We've figured out the traffic patterns for the drugs and weapons, as well as destinations and other major players. We have pictures, diagrams, and a file folder full of other information. The recon part of the mission is done," Naruto added.

He stood up and made his way over to the table where their papers, pictures, and scrolls were scattered across the top of the varnished wood, vaguely stacked into piles according to type or content. With a sigh he turned back to his partner who was still standing in front of the window.

"We need to get this done as soon as possible," Naruto said.

"Tomorrow night. Tell your employer, because we won't be here the next morning," Gaara said as he turned around.

"Hey, what about your job?" Naruto protested.

Gaara gave his partner a perfectly blank look before heading towards the door, "I get paid daily, and with a day's notice I can disappear."

Naruto watched his partner for a moment before shaking his head, a smile stretching across his face, "You just scared the guy shitless until he would pay you to leave with a day's notice or less, or even better, to not show up at all, didn't you?"

"He was easily intimidated," Gaara replied casually.

Naruto followed him out the door as the left the apartment, activating the low-level ward plastered to the lock before shutting the door behind them and locking it. He had to speed up to catch Gaara who hadn't slowed down, walking in comfortable silence beside his taller partner. At the school Naruto peeled off from the Sand shinobi, heading into the building as his partner walked on through the crowd.

"You two sure don't act like you would be friends," Naru said as Naruto sat down in his seat in front of her.

"The situation is a little different than you might think," Naruto replied simply before leaning back in his seat and grinning brightly at the dark girl.

"Oh, care to explain?" Naru asked, leaning forward until she could look directly into the blonde's eyes.

"Nah, not really," Naruto's grin didn't falter.

Naru gave a frustrated growl before plopping back into her seat, pouting as Naruto's grin grew larger. Bara came into the classroom and sat down in front of Naruto before turning around and giving the duo a curious look.

"Did I miss something?" she asked.

"Just the conversation concerning the friendship between Naruto and the creepy red-head that he lives with," Naru said, ignoring Naruto's rolled eyes.

"So what? They're friends," Bara said, looking a little confused.

"But they're completely different!" Naru protested.

"So are Seijiro and Kaiba, but they still are found together," Bara pointed out.

Naru snorted, "That's only because Seijiro follows Kaiba around; otherwise Kaiba would have nothing to do with Seijiro."

"Boys are weird, leave it at that," Bara advised.

Naruto made a face at her last comment before settling down in his seat and taking out his materials for class. He shifted uncomfortably a few times, trying to shake the feeling that something wasn't right. After a few minutes the feeling went away, leaving him just a little more paranoid than normal.

After school was over Naruto excused himself from the group and headed to the noodle stand. At the back entrance he dropped his bag near the door and pulled his apron over his head and tied it around his waist. Seta was already at the stove where different pots of soup were simmering on a large stovetop range. There was a base broth formula that just held noodles that was surrounded by different spice and flavor formulas to easily make many different kinds of Ramen. Also simmering were other kinds of Ramen such as chicken or pork, or miso soup, and on some days even oden.

"Naruto-kun, nice to see you," Seta said as Naruto entered the kitchen.

"Seta-san, I have some bad news," Naruto said quietly.

The older man gave Naruto a startled look before Naruto could put his hands up in defense.

"It isn't anything too bad. Gaara and I are just planning to leave after tomorrow," Naruto said.

"Thanks for giving me some notice, Naruto-kun. You've done well here," Seta said, clapping Naruto on the shoulder.

"Thanks, Seta-san," Naruto said quietly before helping the older man with the new orders.

"I can pay you after your shift today, so don't worry about coming in tomorrow, we can cover it here until we find a replacement," Seta said, smiling at Naruto's relieved look.

"Thanks again," Naruto said, setting a bowl of noodles down in front of a customer before returning to the stove.

"Again, it was no problem Naruto," Seta said.

Naruto smiled to himself as he worked, stirring soups and serving bowls of noodles to customers seated on the stools at the bar of the small stand. His shift didn't end until early evening, so it was almost dark by the time he draped his apron over its hook and picked up his bag. He merged into the crowd just outside of the noodle stand and made his way home, avoiding the growing amounts of newcomers sporting the 'hired thug' look like it was going out of style.

"There are even more of them today than there were yesterday," Naruto said to Gaara.

The red head looked up the papers he was sorting long enough to nod. There was no need to say who they were, because they had been the subject of their observation for weeks now. Naruto sighed and dropped his bag by his futon before rummaging through the cabinets for something to eat.


"These new people sure are creepy," Naru commented, shuddering when her eyes passed over yet another grinning, questionable character.

"Ignore them and they'll just pass through when they're done with their business," Kaiba said, disdain coloring his tone as he looked over the assorted rabble loitering in the streets. "They're drifters, they'll leave soon."

"I hope you're right, because they're really starting to creep people out, especially with the kidnapping reports that have come in," Naru said, wrapping her arms around her waist as she hugged herself tighter in the cold air.

Naru and Kaiba continued to walk down the street, heading for home. Both were twitchy, nervous, like the rest of their small village around the shady people who were slowly filtering in. They met up with Motoko and Meimei a few blocks away from the noodle stand, and together they decided to get something to eat where mostly locals hung around.

"My mother said that we needed to hang out in groups, so I made Motoko go with me," Meimei said, her eyes a little wider than normal in her heart-shaped face.

Motoko was looking surly, like she didn't want to be anywhere near the rest of them, but she hung close, keeping within a few feet of everyone else while occasionally sending wary looks over her shoulder. The four of them huddled close at the bar of the noodle stand, eating in relative silence as they listened to the heightened bustle of people moving along the streets at their backs.

"I'm suddenly not too upset about what my mother said," Meimei said quietly, her eyes locked over her shoulder.

Motoko looked over her shoulder, then quickly looked back, focusing on her noodles as Kaiba, then Naru did the same. After a few more moments of allowing Meimei to stare Kaiba distracted her by grabbing her shoulder, turning her attention away from the street. Behind them a taller man stood in the street with tattoos circling their way up his arms, across his back, and up his neck to the base of his scull. That wasn't all that made him stand out in the crowd of shady people, it was also the scrolls hanging off of his vest and pocketed pants, and the largest sword any of them had ever seen at over five feet long, and the small area around him that had been cleared by the thugs.

"We should be leaving now," Kaiba said quietly, nudging the girls around him into movement.

The girls nodded and placed their money and tips on the bar counter along with Kaiba and got up, standing behind him as he maneuvered them through the growing crowds of people, the girls clinging to each other and to him. They made their way through the crowd like this, in a small, moving blob until they were completely immersed in a sea of people.

They didn't notice that they were being followed until they were out of the crowd and most of the way to their homes. The sword-carrying man was striding along behind them, a grin on his face as he watched them move nervously in a shuffling group. It was Naru who noticed him first, when she turned around to check a noise that she had heard coming from behind her. Her startled eyes looked up into the grinning man's and she gave a startled squeak, which alerted the rest of the group, then started pushing at them to move faster.

"Naru, what?" Kaiba's voice was stressed until he, too, turned around and saw who exactly was following them.

"Well, aren't we a pretty little group," the man's voice was deep, and leery as he looked over the three young girls in front of him.

"No," Meimei's voice squeaked as her eyes grew impossibly wider.

"I think you are. Now, who will come with me?" he grinned, showing brilliant white teeth against darkly tanned skin.

"No one is going to come with you. Leave us alone, now," Kaiba ordered, moving to stand in front of the girls protectively.

"No, I don't think I will."

Suddenly they were surrounded by cloying smoke that fogged their vision and lodged in their throats as they bent over, coughing and wiping their running eyes as the smoke around them slowly cleared. Through the thinning smoke they could see a few of the people around them doing the same thing. After a quick headcount a cold feeling started to settle in the bottom of Kaiba's stomach, settling in the pit and lodging there in a way that wouldn't be easy to get out.

"Naru! Where's Naru?" Meimei's voice grew to a shriek as she, too, noticed who was missing from their small group.

"Come on, let's go find Kenichi, Bara, and the others for some help," Kaiba said, his voice raising a little in his growing panic.

They started off in a run, heading towards the siblings' home, and Naruto's apartment.


Naruto sighed as he made his way to the grocery store that was situated almost across the street from his apartment complex. If they were going to be leaving in the next day or so they were going to need supplies for the road. Two weeks of camping out required dried foods, water supplies, soup mixes, and jerky that could be supplemented with hunted game and fruits and vegetables bought along the way in small villages.

Naruto blinked as he exited the grocers and the sound of running feet started heading in his direction, slowing when Bara and Kaiba came into sight.

"Where's the fire?"

The two were too winded to give him more than a quick glare before they could spill the news.

"Naru's been kidnapped!"

Naruto's blue eyes widened, "What do you mean she's been kidnapped?"

Kaiba clenched his fists and angrily ground out the story, "She was kidnapped when a large man bristling with scrolls and carrying a large sword managed to make a huge cloud of smoke. He took her when we were trying to get the smoke to clear."

Naruto's eyes narrowed as he considered their description of the man who had taken Naru. It sounded suspiciously like a ninja, and if it was a ninja, then they were going to have a few more problems than originally anticipated.

"Naruto-" Kaiba's voice trailed off as he turned again to where Naruto had been standing, only to be greeted with a small cloud of dust that proved Naruto had been there at all.

Naruto appeared in the apartment with a small cloud of dust still clinging to his clothes. Gaara looked up from the large pile of papers littered across their small kitchen table, his eyes tracking the back and forth momentum of his partner's pacing that had picked up after he had dropped the food in their kitchen.

"They've taken a girl from the village. They've taken Naru," Naruto said, a snarl creeping into his voice. "We need to attack tonight, before they take more."

"Tonight then," Gaara said, a grin crawling across his face. "Too late, it's already here."

Naruto shuddered at the look that had come upon his partner's usually stoic face. He knew that Gaara had struck a deal with his demon, literally, but there were times when he doubted the deal's validity. There was something about seeing his partner go from someone completely in control to someone smiling like a homicidal maniac (like his partner used to be, and still somewhat was) who most likely was not going to go easy on the enemy.

"Meet me on the ridge, I'm going to take care of Bara and Kaiba and keep them from getting in our way," Naruto said, before disappearing again, leaving Gaara behind to pack away the scrolls, papers, and pictures littering their tabletop.

Naruto appeared in front of Kaiba just as the other boy was going to lead Bara into the apartment complex, making the duo jump.

"Where did you go?" Kaiba snapped, frustration taking over. "This is serious, not a game!"

"I know that. I just explained the situation to my partner. We're going to go look on our own while you guys continue what you were doing," Naruto said, holding his hand up to block any of Bara's protests.

"Who do you think you are? You can't just go out and find her, she was kidnapped! This isn't like looking for a lost pet. I don't know how you deal with this where ever you came from, but that isn't how we do things around here," Kaiba yelled, his dark eyes narrowing.

"You know how we take care of things like this where I come from? We hire shinobi! We let people who know what to do take care of things like this!" Naruto snapped, moving closer to the taller boy and glaring up.

"We don't have any shinobi here," Kaiba growled back, glaring down at the shorter boy.

"Then find some, or leave Gaara and me to our searching," Naruto growled back, until the taller boy backed down.

"Fine, we'll leave you to your searching," Bara said, looking a little worried about the confrontation going on between the two boys. "But we're worried about our friend."

"There isn't really anything that any of us can do except look," Naruto said calmly after sighing. "We're all going to be doing what we can."

"Fine," Kaiba said after letting out a deep breath. "We'll meet up with you later and see if anyone has found anything."

"Fine," Naruto said, knowing that he wasn't going to be able to make it.


Naruto appeared in a swirl of dust next to his partner on top of the ridge overlooking the bustling warehouse district. Floodlights illuminated the whole district and the surrounding woods that bordered the valley. Discretion had been thrown out the window a few weeks ago as the sheer volume of people going in and out became almost impossible to keep under wraps, so the enemy had given up.

"We go down together, then split up," Gaara said as they looked over the valley below.

"One to the main system control room, and one to free the hostages?" Naruto asked.

"One to the main system control, then to the actual assassination, and one to free the hostages," Gaara answered.

Naruto nodded and they disappeared from the ridge, jumping easily from branch to branch and rock to rock with controlled bursts of chakra at their hands and feet. They landed on the valley floor silently, unnoticed by the various guards patrolling the perimeter of the spill of light and a few feet into the darkness. They guard pattern was one of a few guards moving over small parts of the perimeter in a back and forth motion.

The closest four guards were dispatched in a matter of seconds before the two shinobi regrouped in the deep shadows on the edge of the light. There was a momentary pause before they moved again, streaking across the open ground and through the gates, leaving a wake of downed guards and hired thugs behind them as they made it through the gates without a problem.

Once inside the gates it was a short step to actually get into the warehouses and the short stretches of hall that connected them. Dodging guards was easy, as was getting into the buildings, but once inside they were faced with the obstacles of heightened security and cameras stationed in the ceiling and in the corners of the walls. Sand flew out from Gaara's gourd, covering, then constricting around the cameras until they broke, clogging the alarm systems, and traveling down the electrical wires until every camera in the warehouse along the way to the main system control room was short circuited or broken.

"The kidnapped girls are in the building adjacent to us, near the back," Gaara said as some of the sand returned to him, lazily swirling around his body and parts of Naruto.

The blonde boy shot a wary look at the sand before nodding to his partner and streaking away down the side corridor that led to the nearest attached warehouse. Gaara waited until his partner's footsteps had faded before calling all of his excess sand back to him. With closed eyes he waited until he could feel every stray particle swirling around his form with growing excitement, tracing spiraling patterns in the air.

His darkly ringed eyes opened with a snap as he started forward, walking down the hall and heading towards his destination. Some had seen him and Naruto enter the building and had alerted everyone to their presence. Anyone without an important position was filing into the warehouse, standing ahead of Gaara to form a defense that was supposed to be overwhelming.

Sand was still trickling out of the gourd as it became increasingly fuzzy around the edges, swirling until it obscured his form. Gaara continued down the main corridor until the warehouse stretched overhead as walkways spanned the expanse, more sand escaping to swirl in agitation with each step forward he took, each particle vibrating with anticipation.

"Hey, you! Get your punk ass out of here before we have to shoot you!"

Green eyes turned slowly until they lit upon a single thug in the throng clustered in the increasingly sandy walkway. Compared to Gaara the thug was huge, muscled and towering in height, but also compared to the crimson-haired boy heading his way, he and his friends were already as good as dead.

Sand rushed forward in a wave as Gaara continued walking, obscuring the way ahead as it took out any and all of the obstacles in his path, living or otherwise. Bodyguards, thugs, and other hired help rushed forward to meet the swirling wave of sand, only to be knocked back and left strewn across the floor, bloodless and dead in the wake of Gaara's monster.

Naruto's steps echoed down emptying hallways as he avoided the district's defenders as they left their posts to try to fend off the horror moving down the main corridor. With his chakra enhanced senses he quickly found where the kidnapped victims were being held behind a re-enforced door. It was taking him longer than expected to navigate the warehouse with all of its defenders and still working cameras. Even if the alarm system wouldn't work there could still be someone watching the video feeds, and he didn't want to give his objective away when Gaara was giving the perfect distraction.

Luckily the door wasn't watched by camera, so he was able to insert a small, concentrated blade of chakra into the lock, destroying it before he slid the blade down the door jam destroying the bolt as well. He could hear some scuffling and movement as he started opening the door, as well as a few cries as light flooded into the room, illuminating the forms that had previously been hidden in shadow.

"I'm here to help you escape," Naruto's voice was calm, soothing as soon as he heard the cries that came with the illumination of his face.

"You're here to hurt us!"

There were a few other screams as Naruto pushed the door completely open, ignoring the whimpers as pupils contracted. There was no good way to go about this, so Naruto started with what he knew.

"Is there a Naru here?" he asked, searching through the scared faces for her familiar one.

"What do you want with her? She just got here, and she's already beat up."

An older girl stood up in the back, crossing her arms over her chest as she glared at the short blonde boy bristling with weapons. Her long, light brown hair was scraggly and her face was smudged with dirt, but she was still standing strong.

"I'm here to help you escape, to rescue you, not to hurt you," Naruto said calmly, keeping his hands loosely at his sides in the most unthreatening way he could think of.

"How do we know that? How do we know that you aren't just someone hired to hurt us some more?" the girl snapped, her eyes blazing.

"Because if I was I wouldn't have bothered to completely destroy the lock on the door," Naruto said.

"Fine," the girl said, wilting almost visibly. "She's here, and rather beat up."

"Thanks," Naruto said, making his way through a crowd of people who shied away from him at almost every step.

Naru was lying on the ground, out cold, with bruises starting to blossom upon her cheek and the part of her upper arms that Naruto could see. He bent down slowly until he was crouching over her and gently ran a hand over her face, skirting the bruises that he could see until she stirred. Her eyes blinked up at him groggily for a moment until she remembered where she was a freaked, flailing away from him and scooting back until she hit the wall.

"Stay away!" her voice was cracking, high pitched from fear.

"Naru. Naru!" Naruto moved so quickly that most of the girls couldn't register his hands moving until he grabbed Naru's wrists and held her arms so that she couldn't hurt herself. "Naru, it's me, Naruto. You need to calm down so that we can get out of here."

"Naruto?"

"Yeah, Naruto," Naruto whispered, letting go of her hands as soon as she seemed calm enough not to lash out at him.

"What is going on?" she asked, lunging into Naruto's arms and curling into a ball. "When can we leave?"

"You were kidnapped, and we are leaving now," Naruto said, picking her up in his arms before turning to the rest of the people in the room. "We're all leaving. Follow me, even if you have to carry someone else out. We need to leave now."

"How can we trust you? You have weapons, and you're carrying someone out, and you are powerful enough to destroy a re-enforced door," the girl was still nervous, her eyes showing their whites as she watched him stand easily under Naru's mostly dead weight.

"Because my partner and I were hired to take this operation down," Naruto snapped, looking around at the cowering teens. "We aren't here to hurt you."

"You and the tattooed thug? Like we'll believe that," the girl snapped, taking a few steps forward until even she towered over the blonde.

"No, my partner is a short red head with a bunch of sand," Naruto said, starting to get a little worried. Another ninja was not a good thing, especially if Gaara was left alone to fight virtually the whole compound.

"He's right. There's always an insomniac red head with him," Naru said weakly, raising her head to defend Naruto and Gaara.

"We need to leave, now. Who knows what my partner may be getting himself into," Naruto said, striding forward through the crowd. "All of you need to come with me if you would like to leave."


Gaara smirked as the last of the defense fell beneath his sand, strewn across the floor behind him. He let most of the sand drop away as he prepared to enter the system control room, letting it pool on the floor behind him. Something flashed in the corner of his eye and he jumped back, landing a good ten feet back from the door as his sand sped to his defense.

A large sword was vibrating from where it had stuck into the ground from the force of its impact. Gaara looked up to see a large man striding towards him, a smirk on his face as he looked at his short, sandy opponent.

"Good job with the hired help," the man's voice was amused as he looked over the results of Gaara's handiwork.

The bloody-haired boy was silent as he regarded his opponent, sand swirling loosely around his form instead of packing itself tightly around him in his shield of sand. The man sighed and shook his head at the boy in front of him, humor still coloring his actions.

"Quiet, eh? No matter. I still have the task of taking care of anyone who gets this far," he shrugged, still watching Gaara as he pulled his sword from where it had stuck in the floor. "Ready or not."

Gaara ducked the first two kunai, and his sand swept in front of him to take care of the following shuriken and kunai aimed at where his opponent thought his head might end up. From his crouched position Gaara molded a few seals, releasing them to watch his sand condense into two forms and a barrage of shuriken aimed at the large man who was holding his sword in a sideways block across his body.

A quick swipe of the large sword blocked most of the shuriken and took out two of the suna bunshin as he brought the sword back to its original position. Gaara smirked as he sent some sand swirling up the man's legs, practically gluing the other shinobi to the floor. The tattooed ninja growled before using a large burst of chakra to expel most of the sand from his body, sending it flying back into Gaara's shield.

Running footsteps paused their fight as a well-dressed man appeared from a side hall, his face red from anger. The tattooed ninja sighed, keeping his sword up in case Gaara decided to attack.

"What are you doing playing with a little kid? We are having a break out while you sit here goofing off!" the well-dressed man started yelling at the tattooed ninja, ignoring the way the larger man's eyes narrowed and the swirling of Gaara's sand.

"This little kid just killed your whole defense for the complex," the tattooed ninja replied, keeping tabs on his anger.

"No he didn't," the man snapped back before finally looking beyond Gaara then paling at the sight of his whole defense downed by a red-haired boy.

"You! You can't just come in here and destroy everything! You're ruining my whole operation!" the man shouted, pointing at Gaara and gesturing angrily in his direction before turning back to his ninja. "And you! It's your job to take care of this!"

Gaara watched as the two continued their conversation, condensing his sand around him as he prepared his ultimate attack. It really was a little bit of overkill for the situation, but he was sick of playing around with these people and this facility, and he could feel Naruto's chakra moving out of range followed by a small host of little chakras following along behind him. He grinned as light seeped away as a solid sphere of sand encased him while his opponents were distracted, giving him time to work his jutsu. If the tattooed ninja hadn't been so incompetent this wouldn't have been allowed, but Gaara hadn't fought an actual challenge in months. This guy had just forgotten the first rule of any fight: don't let your guard down.

"Tanuki neiri no jutsu," he whispered, his grin stretching, elongating as sand encased him in fine grains.


Naruto looked back at the dull roaring sound that was coming from the warehouse district sprawled out behind their group. He was carrying Naru in his arms with the rescued teens clustered behind him, the stronger helping the weaker to get away as they climbed one of the easier slopes that led up to the ridge. The group behind him turned too, and there were a few screams as a huge appendage of sand burst through the roof of the main warehouse as a form stretched until most of it was able to move.

"Shit," Naruto whispered as he watched Shukaku's form burst through the metal roof of the warehouse as if he were rising through water.

"We need to keep going, quickly!" he called as the group came to a halt.

While urging them forward he risked a look back at the looming shape that was happily destroying everything within range of its limbs. As the group climbed higher they left the warehouse district and the rampaging demon behind, heading closer to the village where the group would be able to find their separate ways home in the weeks to come.

Gaara watched from his place on Shukaku's head as the demon moved away from the squashed ninja and target and happily started destroying the surrounding buildings as well. Now, unlike when he was younger, he was able to retain most of his sanity when the demon was rampaging, making it easier to call the demon back when needed. It didn't take long for the demon to get bored, leaving Gaara no choice but to reign Shukaku in when the demon started to entertain thoughts about heading towards the village.

You've had your fun for the night, he mentally chastised, frowning as he floated gently into the destruction on a cushion of sand.

Only because of the blood am I allowing this to be easy, was Shukaku's parting shot as he allowed himself to spiral back into his small host.

Gaara stood amidst the wreckage long enough for his gourd to reform before disappearing in a swirl of sand and ninja smoke.


When Kaiba and Bara checked in at the apartment shared by Naruto and Gaara the next morning they found only a note left on the small kitchen table. The apartment was devoid of any signs that would have suggested either boy had ever been there, even though the whole village had seen the blonde leading the group of kidnapped youths back into the village before disappearing in a puff of smoke, and never reappearing again. He and Gaara just disappeared into thin air, the way shinobi were supposed to, by blending into the shadows.

TBC

A/N: Thanks for waiting so long. I know that this took forever to get out, so, sorry for taking so long. Hope you liked it, and thanks to everyone who reviewed chapter 05! And as always, thanks to Asteroid Blues for beta-ing.